There is a need for marking devices to mark small objects for later identification. For example, in the manufacture of integrated circuit chip wafers, there is a need to mark "bad" chips before the wafer is diced to provide individual chips. Heretofore, the marking has been done with a fibrous wick which must contact the bad chip to make a mark and concurrently may contact one or more surrounding chips, damaging them in the process. Further, so-called bad chips may, in fact, be less than perfect, but not totally defective. Contact by the marking wick may damage such chips so that they become useless.
Therefore, desireably a noncontacting marker should be utilized. Ink spritzers are known for ejecting a drop of ink upon mechanical constriction of a part of the spritzer. Unfortunately, however, these devices do not eject a large enough drop of liquid to visually identify, for example, a bad integrated circuit. Other devices are known, which can eject a larger quantity of liquid, but the amount ejected and therefore the spot size created, are not satisfactorily controllable.